My New Threeway Life
I'm learning to balance my new, transitional life. It seems more complex, if also less hectic, in some strange way. I'm adjusting.
I now have three main areas of life to attend to. The first I call, "Bringin' in da Scratch" and as the use of the argot implies, this is the hustle for bucks: income-producing short-term gigs.
I'm doing reasonably well on that front, and, well, what can I say? It's the same old universal story, isn't it? I can't think of anything to add to the standard narrative. Oh, wait! Yes I can.
I scored a gig editing a friend/colleague's PhD thesis. It pays, like, 1/4 my usual consulting salary, but this person is a mentor, a friend, and a valuable network contact. So it goes.
By far the biggest part of my life is my obsession with my career process, finding my next opportunity and my new home. This takes up nearly all of the time not already eaten up by the paid gigs. It includes keeping a notebook with my in-progress resumes, print-outs from job searches, Pathfinder exercises, digital portfolio planning documents, etc. and keeping it all up-to-date. It also includes cleaning up my act -- organizationally speaking -- with my material possessions: squaring away records, sorting the important stuff from the dreck, archiving the former and tossing the latter. This is both a physical and a digital process. How thoroughly computers have taken over my life! At least, my work life. Technology is God in my job market.
Much of this is Fun. In place of a project handed to me by my boss, I'm doing a project called, "Sell Thyself." Okay, that's just a working title.
Sell Thyself occupies the lion's share of my life, but like all good projects, it has a deadline. I've given myself until May 20 to produce the first version, and until the end of the month to polish the rough edges. So far I've spent most of my time just gathering together all the pieces, and mapping the high-level design of the viewer experience. Now I have to get serious about weaving it all together into something coherant, and hopefully, intriguing.
As a change of scene from these projects, both the exciting and the expedient, I am also editing my material life, so as to be lightly encumbered. This is an ongoing project, but gets more serious in times like these. The Shredding Project progresses. I'm down to my last pile. Yay! This weekend, I plan a purge session in the bathroom cabinets (ooo, SOO scary!) and we'll see if I am actually able to stick with this plan, or if I'll procrastinate because I'm so beat from all the rest of my other projects (my best excuse).
Anyway, that's the news from my neck. In case y'were wondering.
I'm still visiting blogs in my copious spare time.
I now have three main areas of life to attend to. The first I call, "Bringin' in da Scratch" and as the use of the argot implies, this is the hustle for bucks: income-producing short-term gigs.
I'm doing reasonably well on that front, and, well, what can I say? It's the same old universal story, isn't it? I can't think of anything to add to the standard narrative. Oh, wait! Yes I can.
I scored a gig editing a friend/colleague's PhD thesis. It pays, like, 1/4 my usual consulting salary, but this person is a mentor, a friend, and a valuable network contact. So it goes.
By far the biggest part of my life is my obsession with my career process, finding my next opportunity and my new home. This takes up nearly all of the time not already eaten up by the paid gigs. It includes keeping a notebook with my in-progress resumes, print-outs from job searches, Pathfinder exercises, digital portfolio planning documents, etc. and keeping it all up-to-date. It also includes cleaning up my act -- organizationally speaking -- with my material possessions: squaring away records, sorting the important stuff from the dreck, archiving the former and tossing the latter. This is both a physical and a digital process. How thoroughly computers have taken over my life! At least, my work life. Technology is God in my job market.
Much of this is Fun. In place of a project handed to me by my boss, I'm doing a project called, "Sell Thyself." Okay, that's just a working title.
Sell Thyself occupies the lion's share of my life, but like all good projects, it has a deadline. I've given myself until May 20 to produce the first version, and until the end of the month to polish the rough edges. So far I've spent most of my time just gathering together all the pieces, and mapping the high-level design of the viewer experience. Now I have to get serious about weaving it all together into something coherant, and hopefully, intriguing.
As a change of scene from these projects, both the exciting and the expedient, I am also editing my material life, so as to be lightly encumbered. This is an ongoing project, but gets more serious in times like these. The Shredding Project progresses. I'm down to my last pile. Yay! This weekend, I plan a purge session in the bathroom cabinets (ooo, SOO scary!) and we'll see if I am actually able to stick with this plan, or if I'll procrastinate because I'm so beat from all the rest of my other projects (my best excuse).
Anyway, that's the news from my neck. In case y'were wondering.
I'm still visiting blogs in my copious spare time.
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